


Not With a Bang

by talefeathers



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 18:32:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6999715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talefeathers/pseuds/talefeathers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere in the cave below Wayne Manor, Bruce is dying.  And all Dick can do is sit around and wait.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not With a Bang

Until the very end, part of Dick honestly believed that Bruce would beat this. The man had cheated death so many times that it was easy to fall into thinking the odds didn’t apply to him. It was easy to start taking his rhetoric as fact: _The Batman can never die._

But Bruce hadn’t been the Batman for months now. Dick had taken up the mantle (only temporarily, he’d insisted) as Bruce had been shuffled into private hospital rooms all over the world in search of the award-winning doctor who would tell him that he had a chance. What he’d received instead were promises in six different languages to make sure that he was “comfortable.” In the end, he’d returned to the cave.

The waiting game was coming to its close now. The manor was more crowded than it had been in a long time, but Bruce had stopped seeing anyone that wasn’t Alfred. He had always preferred to lick his wounds in privacy, and now was no different; he would crawl away and die in solitude like any other dangerous beast. Unwilling, to the last, to admit weakness. To admit defeat.

Dick lay in his old room, staring up at the ceiling. Alfred had left his glow-in-the-dark stars up there, though they clashed with its current decor, and Dick traced the familiar patterns with his eyes. He latched onto this physical remnant of his childhood and believed, as hard as he could, that Bruce would survive this.

_The Batman can never die._

There was a gentle knock at his door.

“Master Dick?”

Dick considered pretending he hadn’t heard. Alfred’s voice was carefully controlled, but Dick had known him for too long to miss the emotion trembling just beneath it.

“It’s open, Alfred.”

Dick sat up as Alfred stepped in, and everything that the old man had been trying to hide in his voice was apparent on his face.

“Master Bruce has –” 

There was a treacherous moment in which Dick didn’t think Alfred would be able to continue. He didn’t know which would be worse: hearing the truth, or watching one of the strongest men he’d ever known break silently beneath it.

“Bruce is dead,” Alfred rasped at last, and it felt like a square punch to the chest.

Dick felt himself nod. He felt his throat tighten into a hard knot as he lay back down on his old bed. He felt tears swim into his eyes.

And the moment he heard Alfred shut the door behind him, he felt everything crumble to pieces.


End file.
